The H-1B Visa Blog by Siliato and Malyk

Is there life after the H-1B season?

The final tally is in and receipts have been issued for the “winners” of the “H-1B lottery.” And now we must deal with the utter frustration of countless U.S. employers and the profound disappointment of the almost 90,000 highly skilled foreign nationals whose petitions were not selected. Such frustration and disappointment will only be punctuated by the receipt of the rejected petitions not fortunate enough to be among the chosen.

It is indeed a most unfortunate circumstance for those U.S. employers who have invested in and benefited from the creative resources provided by highly skilled foreign nationals currently employed pursuant to a temporary post-graduate work authorization and who now must be terminated—unless creative options are explored which test the boundaries of legitimate work authorized alternatives. Indeed, our broken immigration system leaves employers with little choice but to consider an alphabet soup of other temporary work visa categories which are not a proper fit—some of which are just not appropriate or extremely cumbersome (e.g. H-2B temporary need), somewhat disingenuous (e.g., an H-3 trainee visa) or highly controversial and somewhat problematic (e.g., B-1 in lieu of H-1B).

And what of the foreign national? The experience of extreme disappointment is most likely soon accompanied by making immediate plans to depart the U.S. (perhaps after completing four or more years of university study here) or, for those abroad, the realization that a promising career in the United States was nothing more than a pipe dream.

Oh, for the days when the H-1B cap was 195,000 (for FY2001 through FY2003)!